‘Restore commodity boards for effective agric value chain’

You were among the farmers that had dealings with the defunct commodity marketing boards. How relevant were these boards to the agric value chain?During our days, in the early 70s and up to 80s, agriculture was very remarkable especially here in northern Nigeria; and especially when it comes to marketing. Then, we had the commodities […]

You were among the farmers that had dealings with the defunct commodity marketing boards. How relevant were these boards to the agric value chain?
During our days, in the early 70s and up to 80s, agriculture was very remarkable especially here in northern Nigeria; and especially when it comes to marketing. Then, we had the commodities boards. The Ministry of Agriculture then was involved in extension services by providing technical advice to the farmers and at the same time providing the necessary inputs to them at their doorsteps. The other aspect of development in agriculture was that the federal Ministry of Agriculture established commodity boards for specific crops – both for cash and food crops – like the groundnut board, cotton board, cocoa board, rubber board, grains board and what have you.
The aim was to target those farmers who were producing those crops in particular and provide them with technical advice and make available the inputs they need and at the time they need it. Then when they harvest their crops, the boards look for market for them, especially the international market, and even sometimes domestic markets. They always fixed minimum prices for produce at the end of every season. That minimum price called ‘producer price’ encouraged many farmers to go into production. The moment you hear that when you produce one tonne of cotton for example, you are going to get so and so amount, that made farmers feel encouraged to go into production.
Not only that, they provide them with all necessary inputs. The moment the board identified you as a target farmer for a particular crop, they will give you all the necessary inputs. At the end of the season, you pay them back. With that, many people went into farming. In a nutshell agriculture in those days was tremendous.
I appreciated the way things were going then because both the state and federal governments could easily assess the production level of different crops. There were clear statistics of how much we produce, how much we consume and how much we sold. But since the dissolution of the commodity boards, I can tell you that government doesn’t have exact statistics of these different crops. Whoever is giving figures it is conservative estimates, not as exact as it used to be in those days. That is the reason we want the government to look back and re-introduce these commodity boards. I am sure that is going to help the farmers. I know there are some private sector people that do not want the government to intervene in the production of crops. But the private sector is not doing enough to help farmers.
How about agric lending?
In the recent agric value chain conference I attended in Nairobi, Kenya, many experts from different parts of the world presented inspiring papers. It was discovered that agric lending in Africa is not more than 4%. How can we prosper or produce enough for us to eat? That is the reason why we end up importing food. In those days Nigeria was not importing food, instead we export. Why are we importing food now? Why do we have to continue like this? Why don’t we use the money from oil to develop agriculture? We have good agricultural policies and bureaucracies. We have a lot of land for agriculture, we have a lot of water for irrigation and human resources. I see no reason why Nigeria will imports food.
What is restraining the North from revolutionising agriculture?
Here in northern Nigeria, our 19 governors always go to Kaduna and hold meetings but not a single day have they come out with a blue print to boost agriculture. They know very well that over 90 percent of the people in the North have no other trade but agriculture. Though some of the northern governors are trying for the farmers in their states, but we expect the northern governors’ forum jointly to embark on a holistic approach towards enhancing agricultural development in the region. Let us hear them asking questions like, what do we do to boost agriculture? Take practical steps to boost agriculture in the region. I want to see a revolution in agriculture because agriculture is the backbone of our economy in northern Nigeria. So we must do something you know in order to take it as a responsibility. If you look at the farmers and their families, they are still peasants. If you leave them to go and look for inputs themselves, they can’t make it.
How do you see it in a kind of joint venture between the government and the farmers?
That is what I was saying. Do you know that in the United States, if a particular crop is harvested in excess and there is glut in the market, government will advise the farmers to drastically reduce production of the crop next farming season. Government will compensate the farmers financially for not producing at all or for producing less to avoid waste. That alone is enough encouragement.
Most of our policies in Nigeria are creations of some unfriendly international organisations. They will bring their ideas and we would accept them; we dissolved the commodity boards at the same time we didn’t come with any solution as a substitute. It has affected our agricultural production in Nigeria, take it or leave; and it is the private sector that is advocating for this. Tell me is there any company that is helping farmers directly in Nigeria? Where are the companies? They are nowhere.
The private sector is discouraging government from helping the farmers at the same time they cannot help farmers. How can you tell farmers to produce? What are they going to produce? Who can do to the present day farmers what the commodity boards were doing to the olden days’ farmers? Nigeria was a net exporter when those boards were in place. Today, we are net importers. Must we wait for someone to tell us to revert back to the old system that we all know was effective and productive? If the boards have problems, rectify the problems and allow them to operate. Where are the companies that produce fertiliser, insecticides or whatever? Let them call the farmers and say what are you producing? Take this input to assist you, come and pay us after harvest or the companies that buy and sell those commodities how many of them are helping farmers in that direction? What we see instead, are sub-standard fertiliser, low yielding seeds and crop marketing companies coming to price our crops below production costs.
If we have these commodity boards, the price of farm produce will be very appreciable. Whatever you produce, you will go and sell it in high amount which the farmer will benefit from and at the same time have confidence to produce more the following season. This is why we are advocating for the reintroduction of commodity boards.
Are you advocating for the restoration of the boards only in the North?
I know some part of this country don’t want it because they prefer their farmers to have direct access -especially in the case of some tree crops like in the western part –  to buyers who will come and pay them in dollars without government intervention. Whatever you do you need to get protection from your government. If America cannot leave their farmers like that, why should we in Nigeria leave our farmers like that?
The input the federal government is giving to the farmers is very pathetic. They are giving farmers two bags of fertiliser. What can that do the farmer for God’s sake? These two bags are not even enough for a farm that can feed a family of two for a year. Yet, we are talking of producing enough for export. Such government policies are frustrating our production level. Our farmers are supposed to be better than where they are today. Majority of farmers today are still producing in subsistent manner which is unfortunate.